“Putting the Power of Film at the Service of the Poor”
Glittering Radiance
The harsh and frightening realities
of sickness, hunger, suffering and death
cover the earth, plaguing all its inhabitants,
each of whom is crying out
for the eager embrace of God’s love.
But we do not have to wait.
God’s loving arms are
always open and welcoming.
All we need to do
is to turn toward God
and accept the divine hug
that awaits each of us.
In the glittering radiance of God’s light
chaos and darkness
takes flight.
Every facet of our lives
needs to be permeated
by love
in order to grow closer
to God.
Any portion of our lives
that we have not surrendered
to love,
becomes an obstacle
to reaching God.
How sad
that we often
decide to
abstain from life,
to hide ourselves
because we have been
hurt or rejected.
Our inner cell
of self-protection
soon becomes
a prison
that robs us
of the vitality of life.
Our very woundedness
is waiting to be transformed
into compassion.
Our emotional and physical pain
helps us understand and respond to
the suffering of another.
Compassion is as elegant
as any cathedral.
When I look into
the sad face
of a starving child
living on the margins
of a slum
I find myself
looking into
the very mystery of life.
Chronic poverty
with its desperate and endless
struggle for survival
fills me with grief.
Yet these dreadful and hopeless
slums are sacraments
of transcendence
that can unlock
our unconciousness
and lead us to a place
of solidarity
with the poor.
The mystery
of poverty and pain,
the very mystery
of life and death,
is too deep,
too sensitive,
too fragile
to be understood or solved
by one story,
one person,
one church,
one religion,
one system of thought.
But in these
places of desperation
I often catch
glimpses of hope
and the feeling
that life is truly
magnificent and precious.
The cross is clearly visible
in these nightmarish slums,
but so is the joy of Easter.
There is nothing
so steady and relentless,
so committed and enduring,
so firm and unwavering
as God’s love
for us.
Over and over again,
in story after story,
Jesus tells us that
the defining characteristic of God
is not anger
but love.
Yet we stumble around
in a fog of
misplaced guilt
and wrong attachments.
As children of God,
we are called to be
people of love,
people who accept
God’s love
and people who transmit
God’s love.
We live in
a constant state
of genesis,
always changing,
always evolving,
always being born anew.
Today we begin again.
This very moment
is pregnant
with new possibilities
for growing
in God,
with God,
through God.
Today is
a new creation.
Mystical Eyes
Each day brings
its share
of sweetness
and bitterness,
of joy
and misery,
of comfort
and pain,
of laughter
and tears,
of hopes
and disappointments.
Each day brings
rejection and acceptance,
loneliness and communion.
Each day brings moments
of fear and despair
and courage and delight.
Each day brings
a flood of words
and a desert of silence.
Each day we have moments of
transparency and deception,
moments of
faithfulness and infidelity,
moments of
strength and weakness,
moments of
purity and lust,
moments of
beauty and cruelty.
And each day
God is present
in all these things,
in all the ups and downs,
in the heartache and elation,
in the victories and the defeats.
But God’s presence is
hidden and silent.
It is only through faith
we can see and hear God,
even though our seeing and hearing
are gravely impaired
and far from perfect.
We really don’t know God,
yet we do know God.
In our not knowing
is the beginning of our knowing.
To see God
in all things
each day,
is the mysticism
of everyday life,
the ordinary mysticism
that sees the extraordinary
work of God
even in the mundane events
of everyday life.
And with everyday mystical eyes
we are able to see God
in both the cries of the poor
and the laughter of a child,
in both a tender kiss
and in a deadly disease.
Disconnected
Television and the internet
have turned our interior dwellings
into shanty towns.
Instead of looking in,
they prompt us to look outward,
and we become
what we gaze upon.
Long ago, in a remote village
in the south of France,
St. John Marie Vianney,
known as the Cure of Ars,
noticed an old farmer
who used to sit for hours
in the humble, empty church.
When the saint asked him
what he was doing,
the farmer replied:
“He looks at me
and I look at him.”
It really is that simple,
but modern life
is so connected
to so much
we are easily disconnected
from the All.
Harmony in Diversity
We are all created by the Creator,
and so we are all in relationship with one another.
We are all brothers and sisters,
and to set yourself up as higher or better
than others is a subtle form of blasphemy.
We are all connected.
If one amongst us is diminished,
we are all diminished.
We are one with all of creation
and the Creator.
We must seek harmony in diversity
as we rejoice in our humanness.
The Incarnation compels us to step
to the back of the bus
and choose to sit with the poor
and learn to see life
from their point of view
in order to better share in their struggle
for access to God’s gift of
freedom, oneness and love
that has been denied to them
by virtue of our selfishness.
